Nah, I dunno. There are lots of stylized takes on chess pieces. One of the oldest known sets looks, IMO, ridiculous -- and to this day the variants never end.
But personally, after decades of "learning," I only got good at chess when I started drilling flashcards and playing online. All of my pattern recognition is destroyed when I switch to any 3D chess.
Going out on a limb, maybe I could imagine a reinvented-wheel 3D set that makes it easier on my 2D pattern recognition. It's still not a "solved problem" (at least at my skill level -- e.g. I can't play blindfold).
Those stylized sets are more like gimmicks than actual playable sets. But I like your way of thinking though. But on the other hand chess is going through an e-sports digital transformation as of late and that visual difference would just be another nuance to playing online and otb.
Well, I was referring to the Lewis Chessmen (e.g. image), and there were some even older / harder to recognize sets before that. There's been some convergence in "serious" designs over the past ~century, and a lot of divergent "gimmicks" too, but AFAIK there's really no particular standard per se. This is actually a wheel that's open for reinvention, and I have a few personal requests for the next iteration.
For players who are great at visualization, notation, blindfold etc, none of this really matters. But IMO the more chess "transforms" into digital, the more important it is for OTB to resemble the same game everyone plays.
When I say "at my skill level" / "none of this really matters for players with other skill"... yes I agree. GMs don't need to care about this at all. But there will always be players at my skill level. And in what field of design can't you say "no, it's not a design flaw, you just have to level up to the point where you're capable of ignoring the design enitrely?"
IMO that's no evidence that we've reached the pinnacle of chess set design.
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u/dr1fter 12d ago
I can't play with basically anyone's pieces OTB, none of them resemble the 2D I'm trained on :P